Heavy rain takes toll on Kerala roads

Heavy rains have turned the roads in Kerala into vast stretches of waterlogged potholes and the BJP activists were protesting the government's inability to carry out road repairs.

When the protest began here, 270 km from the state capital, there were only a handful of BJP activists, but soon curious onlookers also joined in by bathing in the muddy waters on the Thrissur-Pallakad highway.

Not only the state has had heavy rains this monsoon, Kerala has no full-fledged minister for public works department (PWD) after T.U. Kuruvilla resigned in wake of a land deal scam. In July, Kuruvilla had said the road repairs for the entire state would be carried out by Aug 31.

The Kerala High Court Tuesday severely criticised the state government, and observed that the government was taking no action and only giving mere assurances.

'The condition of the Trissur- Palakkad road is not just bad, but there is no road at all,' said Justice S. Sirijagan during the hearing of a petition from the contractors' association. The contractors are asking the state's public works department for early settlement of their dues amounting to nearly Rs. 400 million.

To the high court's observation, Chief Minister V.S.Achuthanandan rewsponded that the road repairs could not be carried out because of the heavy rain.

'I have checked and found out that there is no shortage of funds, and rains are a problem,' said Achuthanandan after weekly cabinet meeting Wednesday.

Rain hinders road repair: Isaac

Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac has said that the roads in the State could have been restored to good condition by now, but for the continuing rain.

In a release here on Wednesday, he said only 1,134 of the 5,430 items of emergency road repair works sanctioned so far by the government could be completed. The remaining items of works could be taken up within two days of the rain relenting.

He said he was issuing the press release to remove certain wrong impressions the people might have received from media interpretations of the remarks the High Court made on the subject of road conditions on Tuesday.

The Chief Minister had convened a high-level meeting to discuss the road conditions on September 6. The government had sanctioned a sum of only Rs.89 crore till that date this financial year for road maintenance. The sanctioned amount went up to Rs.320 crore by September 11.

Technical clearance too was given immediately for the works thus given administrative sanction. The government had already finalised the tenders with respect to 90 per cent of these items of works.

Dr. Isaac reassured the public that the issues hindering the maintenance of Thrissur-Palakkad road would be sorted out immediately. This year’s monsoon was the last straw for this road. An important decision taken at the meeting convened by the Chief Minister was to start maintenance work on this road without waiting for the approval of the National Highway Authority of India . If needed, the requisite funds would be released from the State exchequer, he said.

BJP hartal in Idukki district today

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for a dawn-to-dusk hartal in Idukki district on Thursday in protest against the transfer of District Collector Raju Narayanaswamy. The decision to transfer an officer who was specially deputed to take on the encroachers clearly shows that the Chief Minister and the Left Democratic Front government have succumbed to pressures from the land mafia, alleged party’s Idukki district president Sreenagari Rajan and the State committee member J. Jayakumar.

CAT declines to stay Kerala Govt order

The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Ernakulam, on Wednesday declined to stay the September 18 order of the Kerala Government suspending V Gopinathan, Chief Conservator of Forests.

While admitting the application of Gopinathan challenging his suspension, the Tribunal directed the government to file its reply by October 22.

The applicant was suspended on the allegation that he had failed in his duty to apprise the government regarding the Merchiston land deal and related matters.

According to the petitioner, the suspension order was without authority of law and sought to set it aside. The suspension was selective and against the provisions of central service disciplinary and appeal rules.

Government opposed the application saying that there was enough material to place him under suspension.

Without availing the statutory remedying of filing appeal before government, he has rushed to court, the government pointed out.